Baby girl sold for N500,000 in Onitsha

Akure— For buying a baby from a 17-year-old mother, a couple, Mr and Mrs Sunday Kalu, and three child traffickers, are presently cooling their feet at the Criminal Investigation Department of Ondo State Police Command. The young mother, Tessy Obianua, Vanguard gathered, was allegedly impregnated by one Shola. But she later eloped with Jude, her parents’ neighbour in Ogbese, Ondo State, to Onitsha. Police source said the baby’s grandfather, Mr. Henry Obianua, forwarded a petition to the command that her daughter was impregnated by an unknown person who eloped with her. Obianua alleged that her daughter ran away with the pregnancy in January 2015 and re-appeared in May last year without the baby or the pregnancy. The daughter was said to have confessed that Jude, who was their neighbour at Ogbese camp, took her away to Onisha where she was delivered of a baby girl. She confided in her uncle that the baby was sold to a couple in Onisha for half a million naira and that she was forced to sign an undertaking that she would never come back to reclaim the baby. Detectives from the state Police Command traced the buyer of the baby to Onitsha and the alleged trafficker, Mrs Chibuzor Okoye of 3, Tonny Olisaa Street, Awada, in Onitsha, was arrested. The couple, who were later arrested at their 8, Uzogwu Street, Onitsha, claimed they gave N200,000 out of the money to Jude to buy clothes and shoes for the mother of the baby,